Twilight Zone | What are your favorite episodes?

Now you've all got me thinking about those great shows, and I can't remember the title of the one about the lost airliner searching for a landing site through time.  Please post it so I can get it out of my mind.  Thanks.

In reply to Jim Pettengill :

The Odyssey of Flight 33

And tonight we watched “I Shot an Arrow Into the Air” and “The Hitch-Hiker.”

I’d give “Arrow” a solid B–maybe even a B+. At the time, it probably seemed more dramatic. Are they marooned on an astroid? Will any of them get rescued despite the long odds? Will radio contact be restored? And where are they?

Ta-da, they landed back on Earth! (Odd that they never noticed a plane passing overhead, but I guess things were different back then.)

This one should also get bonus points for what it doesn’t show. You never see the crashed rocket, but you know it’s there. 

“Hitch-Hiker” is a favorite. It’s dark and ominous, with the main character slowing cracking up as the miles pass. Who is that man following her? How can she escape his presence? Will she break the spell upon arriving in California? I‘d say this is one you gotta watch. 

Another sad twist one is "The Long Morrow" - astronaut falls in love before his 30 year mission and has the dilemma of going into stasis while she ages on Earth.

"The Lonely" is also interesting sci-fi, a prisoner is given a girl robot to keep him company in exile. Relevant today with AI.

Both are contrived to the make the main characters suffer.

One for the Angels -S1-E2

Intro

Street scene: Summer. The present. Man on a sidewalk named Lew Bookman, age sixtyish. Occupation: pitchman. Lew Bookman, a fixture of the summer, a rather minor component to a hot July, a nondescript, commonplace little man whose life is a treadmill built out of sidewalks. And in just a moment, Lew Bookman will have to concern himself with survival – because as of three o'clock this hot July afternoon, he'll be stalked by Mr. Death.

Closing

Lewis J. Bookman, age sixtyish. Occupation: pitchman. Formerly a fixture of the summer, formerly a rather minor component to a hot July. But, throughout his life, a man beloved by the children, and therefore, a most important man. Couldn't happen, you say? Probably not in most places – but it did happen in the Twilight Zone.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

If I remember correctly, I was in a creative writing class where we read the short story the episode is based on, and then watched the episode.

I don't remember the exact point of the lesson, but I guess it stood out to me.

j_tso said:

Both are contrived to the make the main characters suffer.

I'm not sure what it says about me, but I find the portrayal of human suffering compelling.

(Wow, writing that out makes it sound way more weird than it did in my head.)

Maybe that's why one of my favorite media genres is anything post-apocalypse. I don't care as much about how the world ended, I just want to see how humanity adapts.

I loved "The Invaders." The dialogue was great.

Colin Wood said:

j_tso said:

Both are contrived to the make the main characters suffer.

I'm not sure what it says about me, but I find the portrayal of human suffering compelling.

[The people at party around him, slowly back away]

Maybe that's why one of my favorite media genres is anything post-apocalypse. I don't care as much about how the world ended, I just want to see how humanity adapts.

I do love those also.

If you have not seen The Road.... it might break you of it, but it's definitely one of them.  

The game Fallout (and even the Amazon series a bit) is very much that also (if you are into games)

David S. Wallens said:

“Hitch-Hiker” is a favorite. It’s dark and ominous, with the main character slowing cracking up as the miles pass. Who is that man following her? How can she escape his presence? Will she break the spell upon arriving in California? I‘d say this is one you gotta watch.

Yes!  I was trying to remember this one.  Thank you.

In reply to Duke :

You’re welcome. If I wanted to welcome someone to the series, that would be high on the list: fast pacing, simple narrative, likable main character, unexpected twist at the end. 

For some reason I watched this one a lot.
"The After Hours"

"But it makes you wonder, doesn't it, just how normal are we? Just who are the people we nod our hellos to as we pass on the street? A rather good question to ask . . . particularly in the Twilight Zone."

In reply to aircooled :

Oh yeah, I fell into the deep when I played Fallout 3 for the first time (if only I could recapture the moment of walking out of Vault 101 for the first time again) and I also love the show.

I've not seen The Road, but it sounds familiar, I'll have to add it to my list.

Similarly, I enjoyed the S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Metro 2033 video games (I know, I should read the Metro 2033 books, too).

We watched “The Purple Testament” the other night. 

The opening narration:

Infantry platoon, U.S. Army, Philippine Islands, 1945. These are the faces of the young men who fight, as if some omniscient painter had mixed a tube of oils that were at one time earth brown, dust gray, blood red, beard black, and fear—yellow white, and these men were the models. For this is the province of combat, and these are the faces of war.

It reminds me a bit of “Time Enough to Last” where the main character is simply damned without asking for it. 

Got to an episode I haven’t seen before–and I think it’s now a favorite:  Long Live Walter Jameson.

The opening narration:

You're looking at Act One, Scene One, of a nightmare, one not restricted to witching hours of dark, rainswept nights. Professor Walter Jameson, popular beyond words, who talks of the past as if it were the present, who conjures up the dead as if they were alive.

The narration continues after the camera cuts to an elderly man seated among the students during Jameson's lecture.

In the view of this man, Professor Samuel Kittridge, Walter Jameson has access to knowledge that couldn't come out of a volume of history, but rather from a book on black magic, which is to say that this nightmare begins at noon.

What happens then?

You can watch a summary here: